Find of the Week (12/16/12 - 12/22/12)

R.E.M. - Reckoning (Vinyl)

Value: $5, online

Actual Cost: $1

I went out shopping for comics with one of my best pals, Sean, and picked up the new Haunted Horror #2. (Haunted Horror is a great comic, by the way!) Above the comic shop sits a small record shop. After we were done with comics, we checked out the vinyl.

I picked up a few things, but none of the others were cheaper than I would expect to pay online. REM's   Reckoning does sell online for $5 + shipping on discogs.com, so I suppose this is the best find of my week. I would guess that you can get it for $1 at other record stores. My copy is beat up, too, so it's probably only worth a dollar. Either way, I didn't go shopping much this week.

The vinyl is ok, but does skip on the first track on side B. I won't do a full album review. (Not yet, at least. I'm trying to stay away from music on this blog for now.) I will say that Reckoning is some good jangle pop. It's a little same-y, but that shouldn't deter you if you're into the subgenre.

Vinyl is really cheap nowadays, so check your local store to see if they have a copy of this.

Tuesday on Tape #4 - Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2

#4 - Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (10/2/12)

Tuesdays on Tape Rating Scale™

Previews: .5/1
Soundtrack: 0/.5
B&T: 0/1.5
Graphics: .5/1
Sound Effects: 0/.5
LikableLikable Characters: .5/1
Memorable Moments/Quotables/Emotion: .5/1.5
Total: 2/7

Rent or Buy?: Avoid

Each week, we will list things about the tape that deserve special kudos. This week kudos go out to:

• Censoring curse words with fart noises
• Releasing the VHS as Family Edition only, censoring the risque aspects of the theatrical release
• Copious amounts of stunt driving
• Weird, misleading letterbox effects that disappear after a few seconds
• Babies on the cover aren't in the movie
• “I like bouncin’!”
• “Can a baby get some water?”

Personal Thoughts: Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 looked so much better than it actually was. I've been wanting to see this movie since it was released in 2004. The first Baby Geniuses movie is pretty stupid and funny, and this one looked even more stupid! How could it not be funny?

I recently remembered the bouncy ball baby and decided to look up the trailer. The trailer was hilarious, so I immediately checked to see if the movie was on VHS. 2004 was the very, very late end-of-days era for the format in America. I figured if any movie would be released on tape in '04, it had to be some family movie drivel like Baby Geniuses 2. As soon as I saw it available on Amazon, I purchased a new copy from the marketplace.

As for the actual movie, it sucked. Now, one thing to keep in mind with my reviews is that if I say something sucks, it sucks. Bad. I appreciate things that are so-bad-it's-good (I never liked that phrase). I don't consider campy stories and hilarious acting to be "sucky." If I say something sucks, it has to be boring and unentertaining. Sucky fits Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 to a tee.

A child superspy uses a machine to turn four babies into superheroes to fight some crazy German guy. The highlights were Bouncy Boy, the little baby who turns into a rubber superball. He gets the best lines in the movie, as quoted above in the kudos. There's a couple of other cool things like the stunts (with some hilarious CGI thrown in too) and fart jokes. In between that goodness, however, is a bunch of boring crap. Mostly it's just Jon Voight playing a Hitler type, talking about he hates babies. Avoid this if you actually want something funny to watch. Watch only if your viewing group is strong enough to talk through the really boring moments in bad movies.

Tuesday on Tape #3 - Phat Beach

#3 - Phat Beach (9/18/12)

Tuesdays on Tape Rating Scale™
Previews: 0/1
Soundtrack: .5/.5
B&T: 1.5/1.5
Graphics: .5/1
Sound Effects: .5/.5
Likable Characters: 1/1
Memorable Moments/Quotables/Emotion: 1.5/1.5
Total: 5.5/7

Rent or Buy?: Buy

Personal Thoughts: Phat Beach is a great movie. This beach adventure stars Lean on Me favorite hefty homeboy Huggy Hopkins. It also happened to be the first movie the committee rated. We all had a blast!

Benny and his friend Durrell steal Benny's dad's car and take a trip to the beach to find love and fortune. Along the way, they run into misfortune after misfortune, often to hilarious effect.

I saw the movie for the first time in around 1999 on USA Up All Night. It's always been one of my favorites. Upon rewatching, I felt that the first half is much stronger than the second half. The jokes kinda peter out towards the end. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. I grew attached to the characters (especially the main star's friend) and enjoyed seeing where their odyssey took them. I love movies that follow the characters on an epic adventure. Phat Beach is truly epic. It would have rated much higher on our 7 point rating system if only it had previews.

Should you watch Phat Beach? Yes. Doubly so if you enjoy urban comedies and beaches and Coolio.

Find of the Week (12/9/12 - 12/15/12)

X-Com: UFO Defense (PSX)

Value: $70 on eBay for incomplete copy

Actual Cost: $5

This find is what prompted me to document my great finds. This one was found at my favorite local flea market. My buddy Benny was playing my copy of XCOM: Enemy Unknown for the Playstation 3 (great game, by the way) and made casual mention that they had the Playstation port of the original at some game store he visited recently. After bugging him for more details, he remembered it was at a video game booth at the flea market, hidden away in a stack of games in generic paper sleeves.

It was a Sunday, and the flea market wouldn't be open again until Wednesday. I waited, a bit nervously, I admit, and drove there the first moment I could. We found the game right away. It was much to my surprise that the game was priced at $5! Normally this booth eBay checks games it knows to be rare. Luckily this Playstation gem slipped through the cracks.

My copy is incomplete, unfortunately, but I'm so elated that I don't even mind. The original X-Com: UFO Defense ranks in my top 10 games of all time (right behind it's sequel, Terror From the Deep, actually). I had kind of resigned myself to the thought of never being able to play. I surely wasn't about to pay $70 for a port of a game I could play on the PC for free. Still, it's one of my favorites, so I am elated to now own it for the Playstation.

How does the port hold up? It's pretty awesome. It's not quite as fast as playing in DOSBox. It has load times when going to the battlescape screens. The controls are quite clunky at first. It uses up one whole memory card. But, the gameplay is all there. The loading times encourage me to play "ironman"style with no reloads to try and avoid losing fallen soldiers. The controls get easier over time. I have all my Playstation saves backed up onto my PS2 hard drive. It even exceeds the original in one area, the soundtrack. Overall, it's quite awesome.

I am playing on Genius difficulty, and it's quite brutal in the early stages of the game. I may have to go back down to Veteran difficulty, because I can't beat the first month's terror mission for the life of me. That's something I don't want to do. I'll probably stick through with it for a few more tries. I want this to be a hardcore experience.

Surely, that's only fitting for a hardcore game find!

Find of the Week (12/2/12 - 12/8/12)

I shop a lot. Often times I look for old VHS tapes/laserdiscs, video games, board games, etc. I have a few establishments I frequent, from thrift stores to flea markets to retro game stores (some of which give me discounts regularly).

Last week, I stopped by the top local thrift store for board gaming, Value World. I did manage to find a couple of board games, which I picked up (Nab-It and Beyond Balderdash). Having gone over their room of hundreds of games and puzzles, I decided to check out the VHS section. I've been doing a weekly tape-watching event with friends, so more tapes is always a good thing.

Usually Value World has a lackluster offering of VHS tapes compared to, say, St. Vincent DePaul. At first I found Hercules and the Amazon Women and not much else. Then something else caught my eye. In the middle of a stack of tapes, I spotted . . .

Boarding House (1982) VHS

Value: $28 on Amazon.com

Actual Cost: $0.50

Boardinghouse is considered the first shot-on-video horror film. I'm a huge fan of SOV horror movies such as Sledgehammer, Black Devil Doll From Hell, etc. Boardinghouse is a particularly important find for me because a.) it's not available to download from any major torrent site I've checked in the past two years, and b.) the VHS goes for $28 on Amazon (the DVD is a whopping $70 at this point). I couldn't contain my excitement. I think I let out a squeal, to be honest. I snatched it up as soon as I could, just in case some smelly old lady decided to stroll up behind me and steal it in my stupor.

I haven't watched it yet, but when I do, expect a full review!

Tuesdays on Tape #1 & #2: Gunhed & Ocean Drive Weekend

The first two tapes featured in Tuesdays on Tape were viewed before the Tuesdays on Tape Rating Scale™ was established.

#1 - Gunhed (9/4/12)

Personal Thoughts: Gunhed was alright. The trailer made this look like the best mech movie ever. Basically, a group of scavengers break into an abandoned factory and get killed. One guy survives and finds a giant mech to fight back. The sets and special effects (GRAPHICS!) were awesome. Sadly, nothing really happened. Gunhed lacked action, suffered from poor pacing, and often times made no sense. I think this might be the case of a movie butchered during localization. Who knows? All I know is that it's a rent at best.

#2 - Ocean Drive Weekend (9/11/12)

Personal Thoughts: Ocean Drive Weekend is a Troma-released American Graffiti ripoff. A couple of college guys go to meet some girls at the beach. It is everything you would expect. It was humorous, but not hilarious. I liked the low budget feel and goofy charm of the southern actors. Overall, I'd recommend this movie to any fans of nostalgic comedies like American Graffiti and Porky's.

It's also worth noting that Ocean Drive Weekend is a VHS exclusive and can be found for no more than ten bucks tops.

Tuesdays on Tape

It all started in September of this year. I was hanging out with a few of my like-minded buddies when we conceived a brilliant idea. We decided to start a club to watch movies on VHS. Why VHS? Because we can find them for less than a dollar, not to mention the nostalgia we all hold for the format.

We would pick the most boring day of the week to convene: Tuesday. Thus, the club came to be known as Tuesdays on Tape.

Almost every week, we go out and buy "snacky snacks" before settling down in front of the VCR. The first two tapes were watched just for fun. Thereafter we decided that we would rate the tapes on a number of criteria. This criteria has come to be known as the Tuesdays on Tape Rating Scale™. It is a seven-point system that goes as follows:

Previews (1 point)
Soundtrack (0.5 points)
B&T (1.5 points)
Graphics (1 point)
Sound Effects (0.5 points)
Likable Characters (1 point)
Memorable Moments/Quotables/Emotion: (1.5 points)

Rent or Buy?

The scale really touches on everything that makes a tape great. Notice how I say we rate the tape?

That's because previews count for a whole point in addition to the content of the movie itself. (Half a point for having at least 4 previews, half a point for them being good.) Graphics is a funny way of categorizing all visual effects and mise-en-scène (including sets, costumes, cinematography, etc.). The other categories are self-explanatory. After each tape is viewed, the voting committee discusses and rates the movie.

From now on, I will post all results from past and future Tuesday on Tape meetings, as well as keep you up-to-date on any news. Stay tuned!